… Job in the Midwest …
Billed as a dark comedy, A Serious Man is a modern version of the story of Job. Larry Gopnik, played by Michael Stuhlbarg, is a likeable, responsible Jewish man, a Physics professor in a Midwestern university who’s terrific covering the blackboard with Heinsenberg’s uncertainty principle equations, his intensity indicating true passion for his subject. Piece by piece, though, everything goes wrong. His wife leaves him for another man who sends Larry off to stay at the local motel with his brother with the disgusting, suppurating sebaceous cyst. His daughter’s a narcissist, his son’s just this side of delinquent, his neighbor impinges on his property, etc… etc… The rabbis of his congregation can’t provide meaningful guidance and the lawyers don’t do any better, while running up big bills. Even when things pick up — against the odds, it seems, his son makes it through his Bar Mitzvah — they quickly sour.